Web.com Canadian expansion to benefit Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia will benefit as Web.com Group, Inc., the big United States web services company, embarks on an aggressive Canadian expansion plan, CEO David Brown said Thursday in Halifax.

“Here we are with more than one-third of our employees in Canada, and it suddenly dawns on us there is a huge market right next door to us,” Brown said.

“We should have been expanding here more quickly. But, frankly, we’ve been very busy south of the border.”

The company’s Yarmouth operations centre is filled to capacity with about 300 workers, and expansion plans are in the works. The company also has about 150 people in Halifax, another 100 in Barrie, Ont., and at sites in the United States as well.

“We’ll be adding staff at these locations as we increase our Canadian footprint,” Brown said.

“Our name is well-known to many Canadians as we already have several hundred thousand customers here, but we plan to raise our profile here significantly with a dedicated website and features of particular interest to small business owners and operators in Canada.”

Web.com officials were in Halifax taking in some of the action at the Nova Scotia Open, a Web.com Tour event being played at Ashburn Golf and Country Club in Windsor Junction.

Brown said the company took advantage of the opportunity to host a free small-business summit in Halifax targeting small-business owners in Nova Scotia interested in increasing their visibility online.

He said it is difficult to estimate how many new jobs the company, based in Jacksonville, Fla., will create as it expands in Canada. But he said the company is a significant player in the web-services sector with more than 3.2 million customers around the world, and it anticipates some results from its strategy in Canada.

“Our plan for Canada includes high-profile radio and television campaigns and social media marketing. People in Canada are going to know we’re here.”

The Canadian edition of Web.com will also provide for transactions in Canadian currency, simplifying purchases.

Brown said Web.com is growing quickly by remaining focused on the small-business sector and attracting customers from the do-it-yourself web design market.

Web.com competes in a similar market as GoDaddy.com, based in Scottsdale, Ariz., but doesn’t go for scantily clad models to promote its services.

“We’re just here to do the hard work to help small business get the required job done,” Brown said.

Web.com said in a release the company provides small businesses with services including domains, hosting, website design and management, online marketing, sales leads, social media, mobile products and e-commerce.